A Middle Ground
by Occhio di Lince
Summary: Future Jess fic, now officially AU. 'Night was a time of repentance, of forgiving not only others, but yourself, a time of remembrance and sometimes the act of not remembering, known as forgetting.'
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** Future Jess-centric fic. "Night was a time of repentance, of forgiving not only others, but yourself, a time of remembrance (and sometimes the act of not-remembering, known as forgetting)."

**Disclaimer**: As you probably already have noticed, I do not own the show, Jess, or any other characters from Gilmore Girls that were mentioned. The lyrics in the beginning and end are from "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley. The quote in the first paragraph can be found in On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I don't own Cingular, Pontiac, the Ramones, the Clash, Aerosmith, or Guns N' Roses. I don't own A Separate Peace, which is by John Knowles. Wow, that's one long disclaimer.

**Author's Note: **I wrote this about a year ago and posted it on my other penname, Clashowl (just so you know—if it seems familiar, it's not because I'm copying anyone's story), but in consolidating my two accounts I'm moving it over to this one, editing it as well.

This was written before Jess returned during Season 6, and it is now officially AU. For the purposes of this story, Jess never came back after 'Last Week Fights, This Week Tights.'

**Read and review!

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A MIDDLE GROUND

CHAPTER 1

by Occhio di Lince

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_It's not a cry that you hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_

Although it had been slowly becoming night for a long time, the room suddenly felt like it had been plunged into the middle of the night. The middle of the night is the loneliest time of the day, a time when you are completely alone, even if you are not, in actuality, alone. Night was always the coldest time, when temperatures dipped below normal and the winds picked up, whipping through the windows that you had forgotten to close that afternoon. It was a time of repentance, of forgiving not only others, but yourself, a time of remembrance (and sometimes the act of not-remembering, known as forgetting).

And despite all this, night was still more favorable to Jess than day. Day was like California, he sometimes thought: sunny, happy, bright. Night was more like New York: dark, angst-filled, gloomy. _There is something brown and holy about the East; and California is white like washlines and emtpyheaded.)_ And he would choose dark over bright any day. He _had_ chosen darkness over brightness before… look where that got him.

But now he was stuck in that place of in-between, not quite sunny enough to be considered Californian, yet not dark enough to be New York. So he moved again, from California to New York, from New York to St. Louis, Missouri, somehow along the way making it to Seattle for a brief stint at a Community College there. He likes St. Louis, the city is decent, the people aren't awful. The Mississippi River looks like crap, nothing like what he expected, but he grew up around the Hudson, so he was accustomed to it.

He lived right in the middle of the two of California and New York, right in the middle of lightness and darkness (on his optimistic days he tended to believe that he was ever so much closer to the lightness, but too often he found himself thinking that he was edging towards the darkness even more). He was right in the middle of the country. It seemed slightly ironic to think that Jess, who had always preferred to be just a casual observer from the outside, now lived in the very middle.

He suddenly woke up, and although he could not even remember falling asleep last night, here he is and the sun is streaming in through the window.

"Fucking alarm," he said, as he sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and he looked behind him at the alarm clock. It was that cheap kind that you get for $5.97 at a drug store, with the bright red numbers and the blaring alarm. He had to be at the school for work at 7:30 (yes, he worked at a school, as unbelievable as that may seem), and he had just enough time to shower before he had to leave.

He is positive that the reason he took the job as a substitute teacher was not that he secretly harbored some odd passion for the high school life, which he enjoyed revisiting, but that it pays well and doesn't make him feel like a complete dumbass (which, unfortunately, many of his previous jobs did make him feel like). He enjoyed the feeling that he could be in a school without being forced to, and whenever he wanted to, he could just quit and stop going there.

Jess put on the television as he poured himself a glass of water, and watched a glimpse of the news. He turned it on just as What's-Her-Face with the local news started flipping through her papers like the newscasters do oh so well at the end of the broadcast, and the station changed to commercials.

He drank the water in a few very quick gulps, and almost choked on it as he hears the Ramones play on a Cingular commercial. He hates this, how good bands' music is suddenly being heard on all different types of commercials. The Clash on a Pontiac commercial (and Pontiac's not even a _cool_ car), Aerosmith here and there, Guns N' Roses on… was it a shampoo commercial? All that did was make people associate the songs with the product, not the band.

The answering machine beeped (how had he not heard that last night?) and Jess pressed play. _Hey, Jess, it's Luke. I, uh, hope I have the right number. You really should change the message on your machine, I can't tell if this is you or not. Well, I haven't talked to you in awhile, so I was thinking we should catch up, or something like that. Call me when you get this._ Jess let out a sigh as he heard the message. He really meant to call Luke, he even had picked up the phone many times in the last year, but before he managed to dial the number he had hung up, thinking he was crazy for almost calling him. He really should call Luke.

After writing a note to himself to remind him to call Luke back and leaving it on the kitchen table, he walked out of the apartment, locking his door. The elevator is broken, and he walks down the four flights of stairs, still empty in the early hours. He passes Apartment 2B just as Mrs. Finken is opening her door.

"Good morning, Jess," she cried out loudly, and the way he can tell that she's staring at him reminds him suddenly of Miss Patty, back in Stars Hollow. Jess looks at her and nods, muttering a greeting, and continues.

The school is only a few blocks away, and he walked, arriving there in only a few minutes. He checked in with the main office and gets his list of classes for the day before heading to the first one, which thankfully is American Literature: Then and Now, which, apart from the cheesy name, may actually be interesting.

The class is reading A Separate Peace, and after writing the page numbers on which the students will find quotes to analyze as class work on the board, he sat down behind the teacher's desk and began to read his own book.

Jess looked up from his book after a moment, and almost enjoyed being in the classroom at this moment, in the teacher's chair, the power seat, and not sitting in the back, pretending not to pay attention, like he had done for so many days in his teenage years.

He looked closer at the class, and saw the boy in the back that could so easily (_so easily_) be him, and another boy to the side of the classroom, obviously struggling with the assignment, who reminded him of Dean, and a girl with headphones on that seemed like Lane. He looked around the room once more, and saw the girl close to the front, with her head down close to her desk and her pencil flying across her paper, and he just knows that had this been 10 years ago, and a private school in Hartford, not public school in Missouri, that the girl he saw would have been Rory, and he wants to kill himself for remembering.

_Baby, I've been here before, I've seen this room and I've walked this floor_

**Review! Please excuse my rant about music in commercials, it's something that really annoys me and I had to include it in here. Should I continue? (And no, he's not still hung up on Rory.)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary:** Future Jess-centric fic. "Night was a time of repentance, of forgiving not only others, but yourself, a time of remembrance (and sometimes the act of not-remembering, known as forgetting)."

**Disclaimer**: As you probably already have noticed, I do not own the show, Jess, or any other characters from Gilmore Girls that were mentioned.

**Author's Note: **Okay, for this fic, just go with it… any back information that's needed will be provided in time. It takes place about five years in the future, I'd say, but Luke and Lorelai aren't married yet. You can assume that Rory went back to college, graduated, etc., and everything's fine with her.

A MIDDLE GROUND

CHAPTER 2

By Occhio di Lince

"Jess Mariano," a monotonous voice called out. Jess dropped his book in surprise and looked over his shoulder to see the head of the English department at the high school.

"Yeah?"

"You were subbing for Henson's American Lit class today?" he handed Jess a few pieces of paper, and continued before waiting for an answer. "Mr. Henson broke a few ribs while he was skiing. He'll be out for at least a month, and we need you to stay with that class."

Jess stood up, glancing at the paper. "But that's not my job. Aren't there other people who fill in like that?"

"There aren't enough of them. Apparently, people don't have the desire to be a long-range substitute teacher these days." Jess snorted, and the man glared at him. "Anyway… these papers include a list of students and the curriculum for the year. You can contact the teacher of the class if you need any more information." The man turned to leave and began walking out of the teacher's lounge.

"Hey!" Jess called out after him. "Don't I have to agree to do this?"

"Do you want to keep your job?" the man asked. "Then you have to agree with it."

Jess sat down back in his chair in the now empty teacher's lounge, and sighed. He didn't like school, the students, or the other teachers any more now than he had when he was a student, and he couldn't really figure out what he was doing here. He had thought about quitting many times, but then he reminded himself that it was a job, a real job, and he made decent money doing it.

He stuck his book in his back pocket and walked out of the room, to the main office. In the office, he stood in front of the desk for a few moments, while the secretary searched was searching through a drawer for something.

"Excuse me," he said when she didn't look up. She held one hand up in the air and waved at him as she continued looking in a second drawer.

The woman finally looked up, and Jess held the papers up.

"I was given these and told that I have to be the sub for this class for the next month. I don't think-"

"Name?" she asked, cutting him off.

He raised his eyebrows. "Jess Mariano. But what I was saying is that I can't-"

She began typing something into the computer and a second later nodded. "Yep, Mr. Hanson's English class, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do about it. You'll be subbing for his period 2 class for at least the next three weeks."

"Can't I do something about it? I'd rather not be stuck with one class for so long."

"Nope," she said. "Excuse me." She stood up and walked into a back office, leaving Jess standing in front of her desk.

**&&&&&&&**

Jess fumbled in his pockets for the key to his apartment, trying to balance a stack of books in one hand while he unlocked the door in the other. Just as he got the door unlocked the books began to fall, and he rushed to dump the pile onto the table.

He had called the teacher of the class that afternoon, and had stopped by his house to pick up "a few" papers that the students had written recently. "A few" turned out to be a huge stack of them, and Jess had tried not to grimace as Mr. Hansen had handed him the huge stack of papers. Luckily, they were already graded, and Jess made a mental note to himself not to assign too many papers so he wouldn't have too much to grade.

Jess made himself a sandwich and sat down on the couch with the phone in his hand, ready to call Luke back. He was actually going to do it this time.

He dialed the number, and waited for Luke to answer. The phone rang repeatedly, and Jess waited impatiently. What could Luke be doing at 9 o'clock on a Wednesday night? Just as he was about to hang up, the answering machine clicked on.

_You've reached Luke Danes, 860-354-2352, please leave your name and number at the beep. If you're calling for Luke's Diner, call 354-9235._

Jess waited for the beep, but it didn't come immediately after the message. A second later, he vaguely heard someone else talking on the machine again.

_Why isn't it stopping?_

_Did you press stop?_

_Yes, I pressed stop!_

_Well, I don't know, press it again. Why are you asking me; you're the one who fixes things._

_It's not stopping!_

The voices became louder and more clear then, and Jess heard a woman's voice.

_Be sure to come to the party Friday night! And yes, presents are expected._

_Lorelai, stop it! Oh, I know what to do-_

_Beeeeep._

Jess cleared his throat before speaking. "It's Jess. You called me, so I'm calling you back. I'm very sad that I wasn't invited to this party your having on Friday… with Lorelai? Since when do you two throw parties together? Call me back when you get this."

**&&&&&&&**

At 8:05 the next morning Jess found himself walking into the classroom, arms full of papers. The room was about half full, with students walking around and talking loudly. Jess walked to the desk, and set the papers down. As the students noticed him, they began to stop talking, and a few even sat down at their desks.

"Are you the sub?" someone called out from the back.

"Yeah," Jess answered, before realizing that he should probably say more than that. "Uh, I'm Mr. Mariano, and I'll be your teacher for the next three weeks." He grabbed a piece of chalk and scribbled 'Mariano' on the board.

He turned around and looked at the class, not really sure what to say. Usually he just wrote the assignment on the board and then sat down and read as they worked, but now there was no assignment.

"I have your papers," he remembered, and picked up the stack of them from the desk. A few people sighed, but for the most part they just sat there, looking at him expectantly. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard. He looked at the papers with the intention of passing them back, but then he realized that he didn't know anybody's name.

"Uh, I'm gonna call out the names and you can come get your own paper," he said, looking at the class. "Molly Sanderson." He held the paper out to the girl who walked up.

"Jack Rigby… Chris Tiffans… Natalie Dylan… John Newton…" a few minutes later the papers were all passed back, and he leaned on an empty desk in the front row.

He was surprised that the class wasn't going talking or anything like that, they were just sitting there. Doing nothing. Expecting him to tell them what to do.

"So… Where did you leave off with your teacher?" he asked the class. At first, no one answered, but eventually one girl raised her hand.

"You don't have to raise your hand or anything like that, just say it," he said, nodding at the girl.

"OK, well, we were reading A Separate Peace, and he said we were going to write an essay on it next week."

Jess nodded slowly, debating about whether he should just tell them to read the book or…

Leaning on the desk, he looked at the class. "Do you like A Separate Peace?"

They stared back at him.

"I mean… what do you think about it? Is it any good?"

"Haven't you read it?" someone called out. "You _are_ the teacher, you should know if it's good or not."

Jess glared back at the kid. "Yes, I've read it. And from your lack of response to my question, I'm guessing you haven't yet." He scanned the classroom. "Has anyone?"

"Mr. Henson never made us talk about it until the day before the essays were due," a girl in the front row told him. "We just take notes in class." She stared expectantly at him.

Jess stared at the class for a moment. "Fine, then." On the chalkboard, he wrote the word 'psychological.'

"Take notes on whether the issues that bother Gene are real, concrete issues or psychological problems that he creates in his own mind," Jess told the class. He sat down behind the teacher's desk, and took out his own book. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all.

**&&&&&&&**

Jess opened the door of his apartment to hear his phone ringing.

"Damn it," he exclaimed as he dropped his pizza box in an effort to reach the phone in time.

He attempted to answer the phone with one hand as he picked the now open pizza box off the floor. "…Yeah, hello?" he answered quickly.

"Jess, it's Luke."

"Oh, Luke," Jess replied.

"Yes… Luke." Jess waited a moment. "So, how are you?"

"I'm good…" Jess responded slowly. "How are _you_?"

"Oh, you know. Good."

"Great."

"… yeah."

"So, you called because…?"

"Oh, right. Well, it's been awhile and I thought we should catch up. You know, family stuff. Tell me what's going on in your life," Luke suggested.

"Well…" Jess took a bite of a slice of pizza and ate it before answering. "I've got this class."

"A class."

"Yeah."

"Of what?"

"… _students_, Luke. What else would I have a class of?"

"Right, students. From the school."

"Yes." Another bite.

"I've kind of got students here…"

"Huh?"

"Well, not really. Just, the kids in the diner, and there's this soccer team that I'm sponsoring-"

Jess snorted out loud. "Really?"

"Yeah. And the kids come in, and it's kind of like students."

"You teach them anything?" Jess asked incredulously.

"No!" Luke responded quickly. "It's just that they're kids, and they're around…"

"Of course." Another bite.

"Jess, are you _eating_ something?"

"… yeah. Pizza."

"There's good pizza out there?"

"Nah."

"I see."

"Luke, was there some specific reason you called? Because so far, I'm guessing there's not."

"Oh, no, there is. Definitely."

Jess waited. "And that would be?"

"Lorelai and me—I, Lorelai and I… we're getting married. March 7th."

"Congratulations," Jess responded. "I could have guessed—wait, this March 7th?"

"Yeah."

"That's less than two months away."

"I know."

"Why?"

"… it's _Lorelai_, Jess. I don't know _why_."

"Well… congratulations. That's… great."

"Thanks," Luke said sardonically. "You sound like you really mean it."

"I do!" He took another bite. "It's not like I'm surprised, though—"

"Why not?"

"Geez, Luke… You guys have only been flirting and stuff for, what, twenty years? C'mon, it's long overdue."

"It has not been _twenty_ years."

"Uh, yeah, it has. Didn't she move there when Rory was little?"

"Yeah…"

"And I'm 25, which means she's 25."

"Okay…"

"So it's been twenty years," Jess concluded.

"_Twenty_ years…? Wow, it has been twenty years."

"As I said. So you can see why it doesn't take me by surprise."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Neither spoke for a moment.

"Well, if that's all…"

"Yeah, yeah. That's all."

"Okay. Later, Luke."

"Yeah, bye."

Jess hung the phone up and picked up another slice of pizza. He stared at it for a moment. It really wasn't tasty looking, being dropped on the floor and all of that didn't do much for it.

"There really isn't good pizza here," he muttered to himself, and put it back down in the box before shuffling through a stack of papers for a Chinese take-out menu.

END OF CHAPTER 2

**I got a little carried away with the Luke/Jess conversation… was it too long? Review?**


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